South Korea to spend $1.5 billion on 5G mobile network that’s ‘1,000 times faster’ than 4G

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South Korea, eager to keep its title as the world’s most connected nation, has announced that it will spend $1.5 billion (1.6 trillion won) on rolling out a next-generation mobile 5G network. What actually constitutes a 5G network is a bit nebulous at the moment, but the general consensus is that it would be somewhere between 10 and 1000 times faster than current 4G LTE networks, with download speeds in the region of 100-1000 megabytes per second — fast enough to download a TV episode or movie in a couple of seconds. The South Korean government hopes that by getting ahead of the curve, national chaebols such as Samsung and LG — which represent a significant portion of the country’s entire GDP — will have a competitive edge when other nations get around to rolling out 5G.

What exactly is 5G? That’s a very good question, and as it stands there’s no definitive answer. The ITU, the organization that defines telecoms standards, has only just started looking at the problem and is years away from a 5G specification. Right now, 5G is essentially a catch-all term for the next generation of very-high-speed mobile networks that are being developed by various research groups around the world. There have been very few actual real-world 5G tests. In mid-2013, Samsung set up a “5G” wireless link capable of 1Gbps (100MB/sec) over two kilometers (1.2 miles) — but there are scant few details on how Samsung actually pulled it off, and even fewer details of whether the test was actually applicable to mobile applications (it sounds like Samsung used a big van full of batteries and antennae).

If things move quickly, we might have a 5G standard by 2015 or 2016. The South Korean roadmap, following the government’s $1.5 billion investment, wants to see a trial 5G deployment in 2017, and a commercial service by the end of 2020. The main barrier to developing a 5G standard, though, is finding a suitable way of pushing gigabits of data through the air without interfering with other wireless services and without burning through the battery. (Read: World’s fastest wireless network hits 100 gigabits per second, can scale to terabits.)

Radio frequency/spectrum block allocations in the USA. There is not a lot of free space.

Generally, as we’ve moved through the generations (1G, 2G, 3G, 4G), most of the speed boosts have come from utilizing larger swaths of bandwidth. LTE-Advanced, the fastest 4G spec out there, uses 100MHz of prime wireless spectrum (2G only used 200KHz by comparison). While we can rely on new MIMO and modulation tech to get us some of the way to 5G, we’re ultimately going to need more bandwidth — and, down in the cellular sweet spot (700-2100MHz) there just isn’t that much bandwidth available. As a result, 5G may have to use higher frequencies (30-90GHz) where there’s a lot more free space — but the millimeter wave frequencies have their own problems (they are very rapidly attenuated by obstacles) that will need to be worked around. (Read: The wireless spectrum crunch, illustrated.)

By spending $1.5 billion on the project, the South Korean government hopes that it can give Samsung and LG, which own a huge portion of the worldwide smartphone market, a competitive edge when 5G is eventually rolled out in Asia, Europe, and North America. The government also notes that it would like to boost the country’s telecom infrastructure equipment industry, which so far only has 4.4% of the global market (peanuts compared to Samsung’s 30% share of the global handset market). If South Korea can beat the rest of the world to 5G by a couple of years, there could be a huge payout for the country’s hardware companies.

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At the same time the big broadcast (Fox, ABC, NBC and etc) and cell (Verizon and AT&T) companies are hoarding specturm and hold USA economy hostage.

Dozerman

10 to 1000 times faster is a huge target to hit. I have a feeling the actual end product will be somewhere around 15 to 20.

Felix

Well, all numbers from 15 to 20 actually are between 10 and 1000 :P.

Dozerman

Touche, good sir.

Dozerman

Also, slightly unrelated question, but – would the FCC have jurisdiction over point-to-point laser based communications?

igable

Seb, are you sure it’s “100-1000 megabytes per second” and not megabits per second?

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Yep, pretty sure. They are at least aiming for 1Gbps (100MB/sec or thereabouts), but it could be a lot faster.

LTE-Advanced, if it has the spectrum, can get pretty close to 1Gbps I think.

Mitsuhashi

Korea already has working 300Mbps and 450Mbps with 4G. So…. I’m pretty sure the article’s numbers are truly megabytes and not bits.

Brian Kram

Meanwhile, rural America is still somewhere between dialup. and DSL, and mailing floppy disks to each other.

RATBURL

I remember when the US used to lead the world in everything now we are playing catch up with everything even the fucking internet speed!

No U

It’s easy to lead the world when half of it (europe) is in ruins from war and asia is massively underdeveloped. The difference is that there is competition now. Winning a one man race is easy.

Ichi

complacency is a bitch waiting to slap you back to reality

Alex Balex

Thats what unrestricted capitalism does to a country !
And its only the beginning !!!

Mirimon

I don’t think it ever led the world in cell phone services or tech… and tbh… SK has been pretty on top of it… in terms of mobile phone ease and usage, it is one of the cheapest and effective nations to operate a cell phone in.

http://ecellmobile.blogspot.com/ e_cell mobile

All I have to say is, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Just imagine the things you can do with this ultra-fast connection.

Sam Cerulean

The increase in the transmission density of electromagnetic waves could be really detrimental to the health of all biological life, without any consideration or concern an don’t tell me you can prove me otherwise